80HD hosts an all-star rap jam in this week’s Top 5 MN music videos

That’s a question I get a lot from musicians. Our contact page is readily available, but if you’re just starting out in music, contacting the media might not come naturally. So here are some additional tips. My email is at the bottom of all these posts, and you can also email City Pages' music editor Keith Harris with your pitches and PR. I guarantee no response, but email is definitely the most direct route if you’re looking to find your name on this site.

One last note of caution: Twitter or Facebook messages are less likely to be unsuccessful. Much less likely. Not at all likely. Email works best.

80HD (ft. Project Pat, Baby Shel, and Eric Mayson) -- “Etiquette”

Jake Handegard of Morningside Films is one of the most prominent music video artists in the Twin Cities, and he’s figured out how to flex his contacts to kick up his producing career, too. Working under the moniker 80HD, Handegard was able to recruit Baby Shel, Eric Mayson, and Three 6 Mafia co-founder Project Pat to perform on his new single “Etiquette.”

With that cast, “Etiquette” was destined to be a banger. 80HD delivers on the racing beat, Pat and Shel add hard-edged verses, and Mayson brings it all home with a soulful chorus. As if that roster wasn’t dope enough, Minnesota wunderkind Finding Novyon stars in the video as a stunt-driving fugitive fleeing the police.

Niles -- “Become (The Livest) Pt. 2”

You might recognize Chadwick Phillips as the host of the weekly Eclectica open mic at Day Block Brewing, but the upstart artist also rhymes under the name Niles and runs a production company called the Avant Garde. Niles is on the verge of finishing his album To Remain, and to hype up the debut, he dropped his new visual for “Become (The Livest) Pt. 2.”

In the past, Niles has opened for Rakim, Mos Def, and Slick Rick, and it’s easy to hear from the single why hip-hop stalwarts would turn to the Michigan native for intro duties. On “Become (The Livest) Pt. 2,” Niles shows a deferential respect for the roots of hip-hop culture, rhyming with a breathless, poetic slant that calls back to Black Thought of the Roots. Video director Nathan Ejuwa captures Niles as he runs through his verse in a graffitied train yard.

26 BATS! -- “Edge of Life”

There’s an otherworldly feel to the jazz-pop of 26 BATS! Impressionistic and without boundaries, this music sounds more like it arises directly from natural forces rather than coming from any human or instrument. For the video accompanying their song “Edge of Life,” from April’s Cave Cuts, 26 BATS! enlisted visual artist Lisa Persson, who makes the song look as mystical as it sounds.

Persson decorated the bodies of band members Bailey Cogan, Karl Remus, Christian Wheeler, Warren Thomas Fenzi, and Daniel Chavez with gobs of glossy neon paint, so they look like spiritual forces visiting Earth for the shoot. The band’s corporeal forms play Icehouse tomorrow night with Lazy Scorsese and Jeremy Ylvisaker.

Maple & Beech -- “Sand Sing” (lyric video)

More lyric videos! Pop duo Maple & Beech join the fun this week with their unconventional clip for new single “Sand Sing,” which, unlike many videos of its type, features live acting and narrative structure.

Maple & Beech’s Tyler Tholl calls “Sand Sing” “a caricature of a gross ego with a stage,” adding that it’s “a satirical take on dishonesty.” The video backs that up, if opaquely, showing Tholl as an egomaniacal artist basking in his own celebrity before it finally destroys the set of the video.

Maple & Beech are releasing “Sand Sing” as a cassingle on Saturday at Day Block. Bora York and Paul Spring are also on the gig.

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Witch Watch -- “My Fist Is on Your List”

Nothing is sacred to Witch Watch, not even Hall & Oates. The third video single from their 2017 album Wandering and Wondering, “My Fist Is on Your List” is an unhinged revenge song that somehow ups the stakes from the already deranged entries director/guitarist Derek Van Gieson and his macabre cohort have published this year.

In the video, a dickbag bro is cornered at a party by a group of cult members in clunky, garish masks. Without spoiling too much of the B movie fun, let’s just say there’s a whole lot of fake blood before it’s all over. Molly Uravitch created the striking array of masks, and Joah Colby handled director of photography duties.